Data Collection and Computer Networks

Businesses requires large quantity of data collection, storage and retrieval when needed. The financial profitability of any business is tied to the amount of information attainable for making decisions. This is the major factor on why data is essential to organizations and should be well handled. Data depicts the unprocessed information and figures that are gathered either internally or externally. Data on it's own could be useless, therefore, it should be analyzed and processed into information that is reasonable to the organization or interested users. The data management system is the structure provided that stores, manipulates and retrieves data to deliver information that can be useful in making important decisions as far as the success of the company is concerned (Gallaugher).
Failing to put data in a standard format may result in various business problems that can affect the overall usefulness of the data and influence the performance of the company (Peppard & Ward, 2016). For example, unformatted data may make it difficult for the users to access them and conduct an analysis of the data and hence it can lead to bad analysis. Every decision made in business depends on the amount and quality of the information available and having data that is jumbled up may make it difficult to use or derive useful information from the data and hence make useful conclusions. The business can also suffer from missing the correct data that it requires to make the decisions and also to see the trend of various activities which are important as far as the operations of the business are concerned (Gallaugher). Missing data can lead to making wrong decisions that can cost the company both financially and could also lead to loss of important customers.
Finally, the business might suffer from the lack of visibility since, without data, nobody would be able to see what is going on in the company (Gallaugher). The latter case may result in an abrupt collapse of the business which may not be saved.
Creating a database for data in a standard format is quite easy depending on the amount of data to be stored, retrieved and manipulated. First, one must have the permission to create the database, calculate the storage required by the related data and also think of the ways of manipulating the data to come up with useful information that could be helpful to the company. However, despite having ease in creating the database with standard format data, the company may encounter various problems that would need to be addressed before the database could become useful to the company (Hashem, et al., 2015). For example, the company should ensure that the database is linked to the information sources which include the transaction processing systems and the external sources. For example, in the case of the supply company, it will have to create a database that is linked to the systems that track the transactions such as the sales, the region, and the customer information.
The data would then be transferred and stored in the database for any reference or tracking of the business operations of the company (Coronel & Morris, 2016). Other problems that can be encountered in creating the database include having incompatible systems. Data collection is an important thing in an organization, and it is required for the primary decisions as already described in the above text. However, one should note that collecting data does not mean that the data can be used. The latter is a major problem facing big firms that are still operating on legacy systems that are not compatible with the new database management systems. The incompatible systems make it difficult for the companies to be able to draw any meaningful information from the data. The problem of incompatible systems can even be more severe when using mergers and acquisitions if the company still operates using systems that are not compatible with the partners. Elimination of incompatible systems is a complicated issue that does not only involve the technical team but the entire stakeholder in the company and all the partners. In most cases, companies create contracts with its vendors and partners and the contracts cannot be easily invoked and invoking them may be costly to the company and hence it poses a major problem to the operation of the database (Coronel & Morris, 2016). The problem of the incompatible system, therefore, can only be solved through a joint agreement with the company’s management and all the stakeholders who have the authority to decide on whether they have to change the old systems to new ones.
When deciding on the data format to be used in the whole company, various stakeholders have to be involved, and their ideas are taken to ensure that the format serves the interest of the majority of the users in the company. The format should such that it can be accessed, read and understood by the intended users (Peppard & Ward, 2016). Therefore, the firm’s technical team has the task of collecting the view of all the expected users of the database and the data before he or she can decide on the right format to be used. After coming up with the best format basing on the information available, the technical team leader can present the format to the chief executive manager of the company to authorize for the implementation of the project.

References

Gallaugher. (n.d.). Chapter 11 and 12. In Information Systems (Vol. 1.4, pp. 225-274).
Peppard, J., & Ward, J. (2016). The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.
Hashem, I. A. T., Yaqoob, I., Anuar, N. B., Mokhtar, S., Gani, A., & Khan, S. U. (2015). The rise of “big data” on cloud computing: Review and open research issues. Information Systems, 47, 98-115.
Coronel, C., & Morris, S. (2016). Database systems: design, implementation, & management. Cengage Learning.